Braves Not 'Medlen' Around

The Atlanta Braves have been known as the team with the best pitching staff over the 1990's and into the 2000's. When you can throw out 3 near lock first ballot Hall of Fame inductees like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz and then mix in other ace potential starters like: Denny Neagle, Kevin Millwood, Steve Avery, Charlie Leibrandt, Pete Smith,  Jason Marquis and Jason Schmidt, you quickly see that the Braves have a history of building a championship caliber team from the mound out.  It was a great time to be a Braves fan. 14 straight division titles will do that for you. When you looked on the bench you would see Bobby Cox getting ready to get thrown out of a game and pitching coach Leo Mazzone rocking back and forth watching his pitchers.

Now the Braves are looking at going back to the playoffs, this time likely as the Wild Card team. This is for 2 reasons 1) The Washington Nationals have over achieved and have the best record in baseball and 2) The Braves have been hit with big injuries to key pitchers and yet have managed to secure a spot in the post season.

The Braves have managed to do what the Nationals have botched up from the beginning and that is to have a young stud pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery and managing his arm correctly and not harming their team in the process. Washington has the well known big gun Stephen Strasburg, the Braves have much less known Kris Medlen. The Nats made Strasburg the opening day starter and rode him as the ace until late August when they realized that he was getting close to the max innings they were prepared for him to work so as to not harm him long team. A fine Idea if you are the Houston Astros and have no hope of making the playoffs and shutting him down has no baring on anything, but the Nats were supposed to be good and should have know that using Stephen Strasburg as much as they did they would have to shut him down early or risk breaking there plan and putting the golden arm in a potentially dangerous position. The Braves seemed to take the opposite approach with Kris Medlen. The started him out in the bullpen, managed his outings, pitch counts and innings. In mid season they called on him to join the rotation as the rotation had been pounded with injuries and inconsistent starts.

Since then Medlen has been nothing short of spectacular. Currently (9-1) lost the first two starts of his career in 2009. He hasn't taken a loss in any of his 26 starts since, with the Braves prevailing in the last 21 of those...almost unheard of (The Yankees won 22 consecutive times when Whitey Ford started games from 1950 through 1953). Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams said recently on the Dan Patrick Show that he was the best pitcher in baseball right now. Not bad for a guy who started the year as a reliever.

Had Medlen been in the rotation he would likely be in the running for the Cy Young in the NL but then he also would be over his innings limit like Strasberg the Braves still have Medlen's services.  After losing Brandon Beachy's services after he went under the knife with Tommy John Surgery the braves were in need of a new ace. Ben Sheets went on the DL, Tim Hudson was on and off injured, Tommy Hanson had his struggles and Jair Jurrjens was inconsistent and then on the DL.  The braves managed to work through these injuries and still be in a position for the wild card.  No small feat for sure. Going forward they also have 2 guys to help fill out the depth of the rotation in respect to high end prospects; Randall Delgado and Julio Teheran. Both have a high upside and can hopefully come in and compete for a spot, work out of the pen as they mature or be used to help fill out the roster with the holes via trade that will open up this off season.

Just where would the Braves be have they have a full staff.  If Medlen and Beachy were healthy at the same time and Mike minor continued to pitch the way he has been and mix in Ben Sheets and Tommy Hanson WOW, that is one awesome staff and likely top team in the east.  Unfortunately injuries and baseball are and inevitability and that is why pitching depth is so  key.  Braves fans can only hope this is the second coming of a dominant pitching staff like they have in the mid 1990s.  It is too early to put these guys in the same class as future Hall of Famer's but the potential is there.

Hopefully the one game playoff between the two wild card teams does not come back to bite the Braves.  It can be interesting to see what this group can do. A strong playoff runin Chipper Jones last season would be a fitting end to a magnificent career.

Time For An New/Old Approach To Pitchers

 It is interesting on how depleted the Toronto Blue Jays are due to injury. I outlined in my last post all about the position players, now for the pitchers. 

The pitching staff has been picked apart and has seen more then its fair share of adversity to say the least. Kyle Drabek 60-day DL, Jason Frasor 15-day DL, Drew Hutchison 60-day DL, Jesse Litsch 60-day DL, Dustin McGowan 60-day DL, Brandon Morrow 60-day DL, Luis Perez 60-day DL, Sergio Santos 60-day DL. Is this just bad luck or does it go deeper then that?

One possibility is that they have a secret referral deal with Dr, James Andrews in Alabama and are getting kickbacks for sending such a huge percentage of their staff for Tommy John Surgery. Another possibility is that the program at the minor league level and perhaps even at the major league level is in fact doing more harm then good. For the most part it seems like the majority of the issues stem from players who are younger and have spent time in the minors. If this continues, Alex Anthopoulos is going to have to take a serious look at the organizational plan that they use in developing young pitchers.

It seems like teams, because of signing bonuses, rush players along to get the most for their money. I is a little odd that a player can be making more money in A ball one year then someone playing in the majors at that same time. You do get rewarded for potential, and that is not necessarily a good thing. The minor leagues are there for the purpose of developing players in all positions. When a pitcher makes it to the majors they should be major league ready...completely ready. That includes a strong, refined, reliable arm that is fit to throw over 200 innings in a year. The Majors is not the place to develop that.

It is rushing pitchers in particular that has the Washington Nationals in the news right now because star pitcher Stephen Strasberg may be shut down at 180 innings. This is fine, except they are 1st in the NL East right now and how can you shut down your number 1 guy? Do you bring him back for the playoffs? These are questions that should not need to be asked. Oh, and Strasberg has already had Tommy John surgery.

I thinks that it may be more important to have pitchers throw more and not less. Starters throwing more in-between starts to strengthen their arms. Don't baby pitchers and have them on such a short leash. It is just common sens that a young persons arm will be stronger and more resilient then that of an older player. Use the benefit of youth to bring along pitchers quicker by making them stronger and allowing them to grow by throwing more often. Look at what the Yankee's did with the "Joba rules" and limited pitches and innings and outings. What did that do? Exactly what it was set up to avoid. Washington tried a similar thing with Stephen Strasburg and he required Tommy John as well. What about Matt Clement, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. That had all the makings of a dynasty rotation but was instead ravaged by injury.

Make pitchers pitch in the minors, and pitch deep into games. Teach a pitcher early that the goal is to pitch 8 solid innings each start is the goal, not 5 1/3 innings and then going to the bullpen for a lefty-lefty match-up. More throwing, more often, and deep into games. They used to do that in the mid 1900's. Players are bigger and stronger and better conditioned now. There is better medical treatment now. There is more knowledge about good mechanics to save arms...use them. If guys could do what they did in the 40's, 50's, and 60's shouldn't the "super athletes" of today be better equipped and be able to handle even more? One would think so. Teach the pitchers to throw a good slider and/or develop a cutter and not throw as many curve balls is a good option as well. The curve balls are know to put even more added stress on the elbow then the average pitch. All these young kids are far better suited to learn those pitches and develop control and then, when more mature, learn and develop the curve more at the higher pro level. If you already have the strong arm it is better equipped to handle the strain of the high torq a curve requires.

Sure there is no sure way to avoid injury and every players is different. On the whole a new plan may not be a bad idea. When you hear about Dr. James Andrews more then a teams prospects you know there is a problem. The name of an orthopedic surgeon should not be the name most affiliated with your sport. With the amount of work he seems to be getting from baseball It is like he is the hot dog vendor on the Simpsons when Marge wonders why he follows Homer around everywhere and he responds "Lady, he's putting my kids through college!"

It's Strasmus in Washington

Stephen Strasburg, the Washington Nationals young pitcher and last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick who went on to sign a record US $15.1 million contract before stepping onto a major League Diamond, went beyond the hype by striking out 14 batters in his electric major league debut. Unfortunately that may have been the worse thing he could have done. You always want to make your first game memorable but that in itself comes with a lot of extra baggage.

With a standing-room-only crowd cheering every pitch, the Washington Nationals phenom put on a dazzling display of pitching power Tuesday night in a 5-2 win over Pittsburgh. He was only touched up once on a 2 run home run but the rest of the time looked virtually untouchable. His fastballs topped 100 mph., and his nasty curves fell off the table and made opposing batters look silly standing in the box. What was equally as impressive was that he managed to do it in 94 pitches - just shy of the limit imposed by management before the game -- and 65 were strikes. He threw strikes and worked fast.

Usually when there is this much hype it doesn’t live up to it...not this time, the kid was SICK. That being said there is the fear that a) It was versus the Pirates sand that he still has yet to face a Major League Team and b) he may set the bar too high to soon. Every start from now on will be compared to this game...a tall order for a seasoned vet let alone a 21 year old fireballer. How does he respond when he gets roughed up in a start? There have been Phenoms before him that have looked good only to flame out (Mark Prior and Kerry Wood), lets hope that is not the case for this kid. Only time will tell if he has a Hall of Fame arm or is just a flash in the plan. In any event it was one of the most exciting regular season games, maybe ever. When each team plays 162 games a year it is rare that one has she sound and feel that there was in DC last night.